5 Principles to Zig-Zagging In Rough Times

One advantage older marketers like myself have over others is time.

I still reminisce about the days of HotBot, MetaCrawler, Excite, Lycos, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, GoTo, Awstats, and Overture. Those were the days of yesteryears where I began my journey into the world of digital marketing.

Back then, it was a true digital wild wild west. Rules of engagement was missing. Spammy tactics were rampant. Algorithms were at its infancy stages and the “world wide web” was becoming the information superhighway. 

Until Overture came along, there was not such thing as pay-per-click. The other search engines were basically directories that returned results based on meta data.  

Ah…those were the days. But I digress.

Inside the belly of the beast

Like many digital marketing veterans, I’ve been through recessions, lay offs, lawsuits, mergers and acquisitions, and more layoffs. When I experienced my first lay off, I was in utter panic.

Many moons ago, I accepted a SEO role at Yahoo!. It was a dream job. An opportunity that many SEOs in my time coveted after. Yahoo!, after all, was the search engine behemoth two decades ago. 

My wife and I relocated from Michigan to Los Angeles with our two toddlers. The new SEO manager role at Yahoo! was the beginning of a promising career in the world of search engine. During my time at Yahoo!, the company went through several reorganization, market condition adjustments (AKA Lay Offs), and downsizing. 

I was fortunate to survive two rounds of lay offs at Yahoo!. But it was apparent that it was a sinking ship. Executive management was in disarray. Departments were being downsized monthly. Company objectives were consistently changing with no clarity.

I decided to leave my purple legacy behind. 

Greener pastures, or was it? The first time I got laid off

After leaving Yahoo!, I took on a senior SEO role at PriceGrabber (an Experian owned company). I will spare you to ups and downs, lefts and rights of this experience — but it was nothing short of a rollercoaster.

After a short 12-months, the company decided to bring on an agency they thought could do better. Hindsight, it was obvious they hired the agency because of the shiny-object syndrome and the exaggerated promises that came along with it.

When the new agency partnership was announced, I had an uneasy feeling in my stomach. I saw the “writing on the wall,” an intuitiveness that employees feel when something is amidst. It was my first time going through this emotional experience. To say it was nerve wrecking was an understatement. 

I had just relocated my family from Michigan less than two years ago, with the promise of a better life in sunny Los Angeles, CA.

Here’s the rub. Not only did I go through a tumultuous start at what I thought was a search engine powerhouse in what ended with weak leadership, now I’m about to get laid off my 6-digit job with no options lined up!

Low and behold, two weeks after the new agency onboarded, I was called into the office of my then CTO. Here’s the thing, it is obvious when you are on your way out. After 20 years of working in corporate environments, the pattern does not change, not one iota. 

Here’s how it goes down. This is from my personal experience.

Your manager starts placating your projects. Your tasks gets sidelined. Your ideas are dismissed. Nothing you do is recognized. “Good morning” greetings feels awkward. Your manager postpones his/her meetings with you.

You get the point. You’re being canceled!

And as it came to pass, I was laid off from PriceGrabber. That was the first time I got laid off!

The hustle must go on

Over the next few years, I jumped from organization to organization as their in-house digital marketing director and vice president. And every single damn time, the pattern is all too familiar. 

Things start well, conflicts develop over time (sometimes as soon as weeks!), clash of characters, and eventually a breakdown of communication.

I got laid off a couple more times after PriceGrabber. 

After years of struggling to find my “home,” Fullmoon Digital was launched in 2017.

Zagging when they are zigging

During a recession, besides the layoffs, there were patterns that emerge and opportunities for digital agencies to acquire new strategic client partners. 

Fortune favors the brave (and sometimes crazy). 

Time and time again, I’ve seen companies reduce their investment, reduce headcount, restructure teams, and shrink advertising budgets at the indication of softness in the economy. The cascading effect of layoffs creates a rippling impact across industries. It sends an urgent message to venture capitalists, finance executives, consumers, and businesses to retreat.

Many brands and businesses “zig” during these tough times. Can you blame them? They are so overleveraged with enormous amounts of overheads. 

Since we’re a digital marketing agency, it is fitting for me to talk about why zigging opens up massive zagging opportunities for businesses and brands to reset, refresh, and return stronger in a recovery.

1. Committing to long term strategies (build now, win later)

Taking a look at layoffs.fyi, you’ll see a massive list of companies that laid off employees. What is disturbing (but less surprising these days) is the amount of funding injected into these companies.

You’ll also see many familiar companies on the list that you would expect to be a much better position to navigate the downturn. But don’t hold your breathe. 

I’m going out on a limb to hypothesis that many companies laying off employees had the marching order to grow at all costs, make bets, buckle down and hope for the best outcome. So when things go sideways, layoffs is their solution – yuck.  

At FMDM, we made a clear decision to commit resources to long term planning. That means making bold and thoughtful strategic choices and investing in:

• hiring top marketing talent when other agencies are laying people off
• building a super strong content marketing team to craft articles, blogs, and website content
• rebranding our site to better communicate our digital marketing services

By putting in the effort to build today, we are setting ourselves up to win tomorrow.

2. Obsesses with healthier client partnerships (nurture)

The digital agency space can be difficult to navigate and thrive in. There were already several casualties — forced to shut down their operations. Even with client like Netflix, an agency in California was forced to call it quits.  

Agencies that dodged a restructuring are faced with a existential question. How can an agency survive through the downturn and thrive on the other side.

There is no secret sauce. 

While other agencies are scrambling to meet deliverables, at FMDM, we turn our attention to extreme nurturing of our existing client partnerships. This radical approach means willingness to forego new prospects if it has any chance of interfering with current client work load.  

This obsession of client excellence does put FMDM at a disadvantage, but one that we welcome with open hands.     

3. Strengthening team structure, skills, and mindset 

An agency is only as good as the skillset its team has, the way they solve challenges, and the camaraderie (team and client).  

While other agencies are causing panic and putting their employees through uncertainty with scare tactics, we consciously go against the grain and lean in to make our team stronger than ever.    

A few things the pack at FMDM do differently:

1. We do not focus on improving weaknesses. We prefer to invest the time and energy in going from GOOD to GREAT.
2. We “UnFuck” the old ways of thinking. We work through shedding baggage from previous jobs.
3. We only hire people who are passionate (about anything!)

We believe that when other agencies are taking two steps back, FMDM is taking tiny steps forward to gain consistent improvements over time.  

4. Shoot for the moon. Reach out to strong brands

Yes, I know. It’s cliché. But this wouldn’t be complete without mention of moon! 🙂

Brands and businesses that understand economics and market recovery will continue to invest responsibly into their marketing campaigns. Going completely dark is not an option for brands that need to remain relevant with its customers.

As a digital agency, we are carefully assessing the landscape, doing our due diligence on a handful of brands we want to work with, and putting out best out there for a chance to work with these brands.

For FMDM, shooting for the moon translates into adding 2-3 strategic new clients. We are not chasing quantity. That’s for the other guys to do. 

5. Set bigger goals. Do not surrender to fear

Audacious goals are scary. Audacious goals during a recession is super terrifying. 

Here’s where experience comes into play. As I mentioned early on in this article, I have gone through a prior recession and have learnt a thing or three.

The truth is some digital agencies are better positioned to navigate a downturn than others. There’s no sugarcoating this. There will be winners and losers. 

We are setting audacious goals for the pack at FMDM. Every pack member will agree to ONE big hairy audacious goal each year. These are, almost aspirational goals, and may or may never be completely attained. But by setting this goal, we are expanding the mindset of our pack:

• overcome fear
• anything is possible
• 80% is better than 0%
• self-confidence
• learn to handle objections

The pack is setting some of the wildest goals I’ve ever seen before. And I’m excited to see how far they will go!